A Brief Guide to Playing Darkstone

By Seluctruh

What is the Objective?

Legends of the Darkstone is called a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon). Those of
you familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, or other role-playing games
should know what the object of this game is. The object is to explore
Darkstone and immerse yourself in a magical land. You may gain fortune,
fame and experience points by killing monsters, sucessfully casting spells,
sucessfully using weapons, and a whole host of other things.

Basic Tips

Become familiar with the commands for Darkstone.
Type help for a general list of commands that can be used on Darkstone.
Type help (subject) for help on a specific topic.

Get your character equipped

You will start out with armor, weapons, and other basic equipment,
like food. Typing "wear all" will get you ready for battle.
Equipment is also available in the donation rooms North East of Windy
Bluff Town Square and in the stores located around town, or you can
pick up discarded equipment you may find on your travels. Other players
may give you their spare equipment.

LOOK
"Look" will show you a description of the room you are in,
including any items that might be there.

GET
"Get (item)" will let you pick up an item.

Set up your playing environment.

The correct set-up for you and your character will make playing more comfortable
and that much more enjoyable. Set yourself up by typing config. This
will set you up so you can automatically loot corpses, etc. Typing "sac
corpse" sacrifices a corpse to Tarin and you get a gold coin. This
is very useful to know at a low level. Also, you can set this to happen
automatically . Also, type "score". This shows the status
of your character.

HIT POINTS

This is the amount of damage your character can take without dying.

MANA

This defines the limits of your character's 'magical power' or 'magical
potential' (how many spells he may cast before needing to rest).

MOVEMENT

The amount of energy your character may expend to move around.

If you get low on these, it is a good idea to rest, or maybe even sleep
so that you will regain hit points, mana, and movement. Being hungry
or thirsty makes you slow to regain, so remember to eat and drink often.

Get your character some preliminary skills.

Visit your guild and practice some skills/spells with your guild-master.
The lower level guilds are found throughout Windy Bluff. In general,
they can be found along Guild Road. Check out "help map" to
see where your guild-master is. When you have enough experience to raise
a level, visit your guild-master and type "gain".

Ready to Fight?

Now that you are equipped to wander, you can start killing mobs and
getting experience.

Before you actually start a fight, it might be wise to consider the
mob. Typing "con mob-name" will help you compare yourself
to the mob.

Anyone can start a fight by typing "kill mob-name". If you
are a magic user of some sort, you can also cast offensive spells as
you fight. Cast defensive spells on yourself before you fight for maximum
protection. Once you've killed the mob, you can loot the corpse of all
its treasure by typing "get all corpse", or do it automatically
by going into auto-loot mode.

A fun way to get experience and to meet people is to group. The best
way to help your group in a fight is to assist your tank (the person
taking the abuse from the mob).

As you kill mobs and gain experience, it will go into your experience
pool (seen in your score). The experience in your pool goes towards
gaining your levels. When you gain, the experience needed for the level
is taken out of your pool.

When you gain, you will receive new practice sessions to help you acquire
new skills. Go to your GuildMaster and type practice. This will let
you know how many practice sessions you have and what you can learn.

Communication

This is very important. These commands let you talk with other players
and immortals in the game:

All of these commands send messages to other players. GTELL sends
a message to all of the characters in your group, wherever they are,
even if they are sleeping or stunned or dying. ';' is a synonym for
GTELL.

SAY sends a message to all awake players in your room. The single
quote ' is a synonym for SAY.

TELL sends a message to one awake player anywhere in the world.

RAMBLE sends out a message that everyone in the game can read at the
same time. Ramble is used to discuss things about the game that are
out of character. Player
over the level of three may use this channel.

NEWBIECHAT sends a message out to players under the level of 10 and
over the level of 49.
It can be used to talk to experienced players when you need help.

PROCLAIM sends out a message that everyone in the game can read at
the
same time. Proclaim is used for strictly role-playing.

PRAY By typing pray (message) any immortals that are on the game will
hear your prayer. Whether they
choose to respond to you or not is up to them.

ASK sends a message to everyone and is to be used for questions about
the game. The same goes for ANSWER.

REPLY sends a message to the last player who sent you a TELL.
REPLY will work even if you can't see the player, and without
revealing their identity. This is handy for talking to invisible
or switched immortal players.

Newbie Areas

I can't exactly tell you our trade secrets of where our areas are, but
I will give a few clues. The first area you want to fight in is the
Town Park. Go three west from the Town Square and then south. That's all
I will say.

Trying to fight anything other than the creatures in a newbie area
will result in sure death. Try to kill a citizen in the town, and start
writing your tombstone.

Another place is the Garden of Gods. The only clues here are that it
is near the park. Maybe ask the Park warden, he may know. After you
master those two areas, you might try the Plains of Gorud located south
of Windy Bluff. Remember to consider everything before you attack
it. Also, there is a town healer north east of the Town Square. Only
a fool would not utilize this priest. Go into the room and type heal.

When you are finished playing for the day, type quit. You will automatically
camp out. Whenever you return, you will be in the same spot, and your
stuff will all be with you.